I must be, like, the only fan fictioner who actually lost readers to maturity. I tried to update months ago, though, I swear! Oh, btw, in case you didn't catch it, when she said Paul was hotter, she was referring to the fact that he was 98.6. That's why she later said "your heat" and he said "it's me you're thinking of! jesse!"... i'm not a paul-lover! much!

I went to Claire's. Monica was off with Tim in her room. Once inside, I immediately began, "I just had wild unprotected sex," her face registered good-natured disgust; she clearly thought I meant Jesse, "with Paul." Immediately, Claire shoved me against the wall and closed a small hand around my neck. But I managed to squeak out "in front of Jesse." A fist flew at me. Didn't do as much damage as I'd hoped, but it hurt well enough.

"Why are you," tiny punch, "telling me this?"

"So you'll, oww, beat me up."

She stopped immediately. "Why?"

"Because the guilt is driving me insane!"

"Then why the hell would you do a thing like that?"

I sighed, resigned. "He hypnotized us."

"Paul?"

"No, Jesse. Yes, Paul!"

"OK. A few more questions."

"Yeah, yeah."

"When's the funeral, and will anyone be offended if I laugh hysterically?"

"I doubt anyone would, but he's not dead."

"He's… not? Oh my god… where's Jesse?"

"Keeping Paul safely locked in my closet."

"That's more like it." She looked almost as distressed as I felt. "Poor Jesse!"

"My sentiments exactly." I sighed again.

"So you screwed Paul in front of Jesse…"

"Ugg. Worse."

"Worse?"

"Did… other things, too." I shuddered.

"Suze!"

"I know! I thought he was Jesse, kind of."

"Kind of?"

"He replaced Jesse in my memories with himself and made it so I couldn't see or hear the real Jesse. But my poor Jesse thought I was… and he saw… Ugg!" Claire put my head on her shoulder. Of course the mother would be the most adept at comforting. "I didn't mean it! I didn't know! But I made Jesse cry!" Then she slapped me. "What was that for?"

"You needed it."

"I hope you don't use that on Monica."

"I usually do when her fiancé sees her fucking his worst ene—I've never had occasion!"

"Right… Well, thanks."

"No problem. Can I go see Jesse?" She said his name kind of tenderly. But not in a romantic way, in a pitying way.

"Yeah. I'll go with. Tim's taking care of Mon, right?"

"Yeah, they're both fine. Come on, hop in the car." She drove possibly a little over the speed limit, but hey, those are really only suggestions, right? We made pretty good time back to the apartment. I could hear the sounds from the inside a second before I opened the door.

"Hey Suze!" came Paul's too-cheery voice slightly muffled through the closet door. "I was just telling Jesse here how, as a fellow shifter, you could have overridden the hypnosis at any time if you had the slightest wish to do so!" Jesse was glaring silently at the wall. Jesse looks scary when he's mad. Unbelievably sexy, but scary if you're on the wrong side. I suddenly wished I could speak Spanish like Jesse. His swearing sounds way better than mine. Or, worse, as the case may be.

I sat down on Jesse's lap and put my arms around him. "Jesse, if this is true, I didn't have the desire because I thought I was with you. When I started to realize that it wasn't you at all, I remembered everything! Don't listen to him, Jesse." The things had stopped shaking, but Jesse stood up, making me fall onto the floor. He looked at me with a look that was apologetic but accusatory. Then he dematerialized. I was just glad Paul couldn't see my tears. Claire could. She whispered that she could take guard duty and that I deserved a long, hot bath. I gratefully accepted this offer. I got into my steaming tub and sobbed. It turned out, though, that Claire was a traitor. She had sent Jesse in after about five minutes.

But she apparently hadn't mentioned the fact that I was actually in the bath, and Jesse instinctively averted his eyes. I splashed my face to disguise the tears and smiled feebly. "Jesse, I'm your fiancé. You've seen me naked."

He just said stonily, "So has he."

"What do you want me to do, Jesse? I'll do anything."

"End it."

My stomach dropped. "End…?"

"Our relationship."

I felt a lump rise in my throat. I drew my knees up and rested my head on them. "End… like…"

"If you aren't absolutely sure you can renounce all others…"

My voice broke. "Jesse! I'd kill all the others if you wanted me to! Please don't break it off!"

He trailed his hand through the water. "You're saying you would kill for me?"

"I would kill myself for you. Do you want me to?"

He looked taken aback. "Of course not, querida! A fine man I'd be…"

"I can't take it! Do you still want to marry me, or not?"

"Yes, Susannah, I still want to marry you."

"But I've been 'defiled' or whatever!"

"Just make your choice. Obviously you could have either of us."

"Jesse! How could you think I would want him after all that?"

"I saw what I saw, Susannah, no matter how much I wish I hadn't."

"I thought he was you!"

"Did you enjoy it?" He asked mockingly.

I stared at him. "You're a glutton for punishment, aren't you?"

"I'm engaged to you, aren't I?"

"Haha. Well, Mr. Masochist, you're out of luck."

"I am?" he asked with foreboding.

"Yes. It sucked—er, stank—umm, wasn't good."

"What?"

"It wasn't as good as you…"

"Right. You wanted it to be more 'like usual'."

"There is no usual!"

"Then why did you say that?'

"I was talking about you. I was telling him to be more like you."

Jesse clearly hadn't been expecting that. "But he's sure to have more… experience in that area…"

"Yeah. He was all 'this is how you please a girl' but you're more like 'this is how you please Suze'. Hey… speaking of experience…" I started casually shampooing my hair. "How many girls have you ever slept with?"

"Counting you?"

"Yes…"

He bit his lip and started counting on his fingers while mouthing names. My eyes widened. "Let's see… counting you… one."

"Jesse!" I managed a laugh. "What about kissing? How many girls? Hold on." I rinsed my hair. "OK. So how many?"

"Well… there was the one… when I was 16. But she was married the next year. An arranged marriage. He was 35."

"Aaw! That's sad!"

"Yes."

"What was she like?"

"Her name was Emily." (A/N: I know, I know, but NOT me! I said I was puttin' in my ficcy friends, and I happen to know 3 other Emily's on ffnet! And I do wanna kiss Jesse, natch. Hehe I just accidentally typed "kill" steada "kiss"… mebe I'm still a bit bitter about the whole breakup thing. But if ne of u emilies r readin' this, HI! And anyway, Emily's always been a pretty common name! But iz not me. Is susan or Delilah or chocolate, who I've nvr actually spoken to, but whose name comes up on google search 4 jesse de silva. Not that I've ever, ya kno, searched. For it. And there's way more. But ya, iz 4 them, no me. And I wanted to kiss Jesse .Come on! Who WOULDN'T? Now where was I?) "She wasn't a lot like you, actually. She was very… intelligent. And shy. And not terribly physical. Violent or… sexual."

I blushed. "Heh. Am I that bad?"

"No, querida, you're perfect. It's circumstances that are bad."

"I'll take it."

"So how many have you kissed?"

"Erm… heh. Just the… six or seven…"

"Wonderful."

"Well, it's not that bad nowadays! And I think you were forgetting one, anyway."

"What?"

"Claire."

"Oh… That does bring my total up to three, doesn't it?"

"There. So I'm only about twice as many as you instead of three times."

I rinsed my hair again and got out of the bath. He averted his eyes again. "Am I that hard to look at?"

"No, you're that hard not to look at."

"Then why don't you?"

"Because today was… well, yes… so I don't want to… not tonight, and it's very hard when you're… like this." He gestured toward my lack of apparel.

"Do you mean that literally?"

"What?"

"Never mind." I dried off, put on my robe, and started to put my ring back on. "Hey Jesse, do you believe in divorce?"

"What? No…"

"Then the real question is, are you sure you want to marry me?"

"Will this incident repeat itself?"

"I'll kill him first."

"Then yes, I do want to marry you."

"Oh good."

He turned his head thoughtfully. "Has any of this been a ploy to get me to cry off our engagement?"

"God no!"

"Forgive me for being a bit paranoid; I think my situation warrants some paranoia."

"True. But if, because, say, I had been whacked a few too many times on the head with a stupid stick, I did want to break it off, I could have found a less… completely evil way to do it."

"A stupid stick?"

"Yups."

"I see."

"So are we cool, Jesse?"

"Meaning?"

"Are we OK? Like, on good terms?"

"Yes, querida. We're 'cool'. Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I'm waiting."

"For what?"

"For you to kiss me."

He reluctantly obliged, which was a bit disheartening, but he seemed to take a lot of effort to pull away, though, which was very gratifying.

"I have to go relieve Claire of her post. She needs to sleep."

I may have hung around a bit too long seeing her off, because she looked at me mischievously and gave him a goodnight kiss. Not like my, umm, goodnight kiss to Tad Beaumont or anything, but still. Jesse was clearly not expecting this. She checked out both of our expressions and left the apartment laughing. About a half-hour later, when I was naturally still awake, Jesse joined me in the bed.

"What happened to guard duty?"

"Someone sent her husband over." Claire was cool. "He insisted I come back in here."

"Oh. Poor you."

"Why?"

"I don't know, you just seem awfully distressed about it."

"Sorry. I'm not… I mean, about having to be here with you… I mean, I like being with you… I mean…"

"Not so much fun struggling for words, is it?"

"It's not. Quite a bit of fun watching it, isn't it?"

"It is."

"Well anyway, I'm not bothered because of you. I'm just troubled in general."

I put my arm around him. He pulled me closer. I rolled over until I was practically on top of him. He made it so I was. I loved him, and I said so. Anyway, it stayed about that way for a week: the men rotating guard duty and the women helping sometimes, but not often. No, that's not sexist; it just happened that the men in our particular group had, you know, supernatural powers and all. And didn't need sleep. One day Claire went into our bedroom to get me and asked where I'd gotten the ancient tape player. I said I hadn't bought one. She pointed, but I didn't see anything. She picked it up and suddenly I did see it. We decided this had to be part of the hypnosis so she'd take it home and listen to it. It turned out it was the entire instructions for the Bad Day. So that was how he'd done it. Anyway. One day, I was feeling kind of emotional, probably because of the impending wedding. So I brought Paul out of the closet (har har), with the help of Jesse and Tim for restraining. Once he was safely tied up, Tim went to stand outside the door.

"OK, Scum," I began. "You have 10 seconds to give me a reason not to kill you."

"How's this? I love you, Suze."

"That'd be a fine reason, if it were true." I glanced at Jesse, who had a 'here we go again' look on his face.

"It is true, Suze. That's why I've always hated that moron over there. Could these eyes lie?"

"Right… your eyes." I produced a pink sleep mask I'd just remembered I'd brought. It said 'Beautiful Dreamer' in cutesy cursive on one side and had a picture of closed eyes on the other. I put it so the eyes were visible because it was funny. "Now where was I? Oh, yes. You don't love me."

"I do."

"Nope."

"Umm, I think I would know."

"Then your definition of 'love' is pitifully lacking."

"How so?"

"Well you see, Slater, 'love' is what Jesse feels for me. He wants me to be happy no matter what." That got a shy smile out of Jesse, and a scowl out of Paul. Couldn't have hoped for a better response. "You, on the other hand, seem to think love means you either have me… or make my life and all lives around me as miserable as it is in your power to do. Anything for a moment of pleasure for you. You don't even care about anyone else."

Jesse had his arm around me for support and Paul was glowering. But with cute little pink cartoon eyes with eyelashes. There was quiet a moment until Paul spoke softly. "I care about you, Suze."

"Bullshit!" I yelled, with even more force than was probably called for. Jesse flinched like he didn't say worse things in Spanish. But I guess I'm a 'lady' and all…

"I might not be good at it, but I just get so… jealous. You hear that, Rico? I admit it. You have the one thing I don't. And it's the one thing I want more than anything."

"Susannah is not a 'thing'," Jesse cut in. "She is the most perfect being to ever walk the earth." I blushed and could picture Slater's eyes rolling behind the mask. Totally not true, of course, but super sweet of him to say it.

"I wouldn't say that, but he has a point," I commented.

"Whatever! You know what I mean!"

"No, actually, I don't. Enlighten me."

"OK. I'll try to say this nice and slow, so everyone in the room gets it. I… love… you… Suze."

"And you'd love Heather in my body. And you love making out with a married dead chick in my closet."

"Well, they weren't exactly my first choice…"

"Oh you are so pathetic!"

"At least I'm not fucking a ghost."

"Slater, you are so not helping your case."

"True indeed. But come on. Him over me?"

I looked Jesse up and down. From the perfect hair, to the deep brown eyes, to the sincere expression, to the slightly exposed chest, to the tight pants, to the boots. I pulled my eyes away from him eventually, but it was hard. Then I looked at Paul. From the slightly disheveled curly brown hair, to the cartoon eyes, to the arrogant smirk, to the dirty, rumpled clothes. And, yeah, he was atractive and all, but standing next to Jesse… just… no. I made an exaggerated thinking expression mostly for Jesse's benefit, as Paul couldn't see me. "Let's see… Jesse…" I said the name like it was divine. It wasn't quite, but the bearer of the name sure was. "Or… you." The 'you' I kind of spat out, the way Jesse said "him".. "That's real tough. You've tried to kill me… Jesse saves my life… Geez this is hard… You try to make everyone's life hell… Jesse is sweet and considerate… How can I ever make this choice?"

"You know there's more to me than that."

"Yes, but when I think about what more there is… I get these urges…" Paul was smiling, but Jesse wasn't fooled this time. "To punch something… But actually… since you're here now…" Jesse held my arm back, though. He's so anti-violent when he's not the one being violent. Unfair. "Aaw, Jesse, why won't you let me hit him?"

"Because you're above that. Right, Susannah?"

"No! You can hit him! Why can't I?"

"Because no jury in the world would convict me."

"Hmm… True. Although jail might be nice if you'd visit…"

"Querida, we have company, you may recall." Paul snorted and I shot Jesse a 'just shoot me' look.

"The point is, I don't love you, you don't love me, I'm happy with someone else, get over it. If you don't, we will kill you."

"Don't you like 'em dead?"

"Oh, I don't plan to let you stick around. And I resent your implication that my love for Jesse has anything to do with—"

"Oh shut up. Either give me some options or let me go."

"Oh, so charming, I can't resist… OK. Options. Either you never bother Jesse or me again… or we kill you. The hard way. 'Kay Paulie?"

"OK. What ever. Just let me out of the closet. I don't love you any more, happy?"

"Wow, that took all of five minutes. I think we've made some real progress here today. I think the logical next step would be for you to move out. And I mean out of the building, not just my closet. This place seems pretty far below your price bracket. Now go away." I opened the door and he literally flew out. I say 'literally' because Jesse, er, helped. There was a satisfying CLUNK and I locked the door. Then Jesse, to avoid incriminating me, went out and untied him, which I found no fun whatsoever. Over correspondence, we came to the understanding that if he did anything, I would sue. And if that failed, I'd 'to the pain' him. I kept crying, still, randomly. More as time went on, rather than less. Sometimes I'd have nightmares and wake up sick. Oh, I was fine through sessions. But Claire finally forced me to take a vacation. I protested that I couldn't afford that, but she said not to worry. I told her I wasn't accepting her money, and she agreed, maybe a little too quickly. She never gave me money, but my purse had the strange habit of having the same amount in it even when I kept spending the money. But Claire, Tim, and Jesse all smiled innocently and denied their part. And soon, of course, I had to invite people to the wedding. Gina was easy enough since she knew about Jesse. She was super-excited. When I asked about the cost of the tickets, she just said, "I'll take care of it." Then came the family. Dad was simple, of course; he'd known Jesse since before we'd been going out. I told Brad about the wedding first, not out of any sort of favoritism, obviously, but because he and Jesse had kind of met. Then I called David, who first knew about Jesse and was the least surprised of anyone. Then came the hard sell. Mom. The phone rang and Andy picked up.

"Hey, Andy! Can I talk to Mom?"

"Oh, sure, Suze! Nice to talk to you! How ya been?"

"Better than you know… Mom, please, real quick?"

"Oh yeah! Sorry!" He called Mom to the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hey Mom!"

"Hi Susie!"

"Umm… How shall I say this…? I have some good news and bad news…" Jesse was watching me with interest.

"Is anyone dead?" she asked immediately, sounding concerned.

"N—well… technically… alright, let's see…" This wasn't going how I planned it. "OK… The good news is…. I'm engaged."

"WHAT? Oh, Susie! I didn't even know you had a boyfriend! Wait, is it a boy?"

"Yes, Mom, he's male." Jesse raised his eyebrow. "He's been my boyfriend for… well, first… umm…"

"Alright, Susie, what's the bad news?"

"He's… umm… a ghost."

"Suze, is this a joke? Because it's not very funny…"

"No, Mom, I'm serious. He's been my boyfriend since I was 16. He umm… beat Slater up at that party Brad had? And then I passed out getting rid of him—Slater, I mean—and… well… I'll explain it all later, but the point is, we're getting married."

"Umm… Susie, maybe you should be seeing a therapist…"

"Mom, I am a therapist. And Jesse's… you've seen him." Jesse gave me an inquisitive look. "Umm… in the backyard… when you were digging to build the hot tub…"

"Yes?"

"You dug up Jesse." The corpse in question let out an involuntary spurt of laughter.

"What?"

"Jesse was the dead body. Only he's a ghost. That's why I, umm… gakked. Because he had the handkerchief he actually… ugg. No, don't worry about it, Jesse, it was forever ago."

"So… umm… who would be marrying you two?"

"Father Dominic."

"How could he…?"

"He can see ghosts too. That's why we were on such friendly terms."

"Who else can see ghosts?"

"Umm… Slater, his little brother, their grandfather could, and possibly some of my stepbrothers, you'll have to ask them." Obviously I knew, but I shouldn't be spilling huge family secrets that weren't mine. "We're called mediators…" I was on a roll here, so I kept going. "All that major damage to the school was from ghosts, all those laws I broke were helping or stopping ghosts, all those inexplicable injuries were from ghosts, Max wouldn't go up to my room at first because he was scared of Jesse… Spike's Jesse's cat, really…"

"So do you… umm… see… all dead people?"

"No, just the ones with unfinished busi—oh. You mean do I see Dad."

"Umm… yeah."

"Yups. All the time. He's saved my life. Yeah. He knows Jesse too. He'll be at the wedding."

"Wedding! That's right! Wedding! Wow, Susie, I don't know what to say… I'm still expecting you to say 'April Fools!' or something."

"It's not April. But we were thinking about an April 1st wedding." (A/N: This is my reference to Meg Cabot! I ASSUME everyone reading this knows that her anniversary is april fool's?)

"That's not what I… Wow, Susie, I'm just not sure whether to believe any of this."

"Well you should see this rock. You'd sure believe me then."

"How could a ghost get you a diamond?"

"Oh, Mom, don't be silly! He didn't get me a diamond!"

"Oh…"

"He got me an emerald." Couldn't resist.

"But… how?"

"Well Claire supplied the money. He worked for her a bit."

"Uh…huh. Who's Claire?"

"New friend… former patient."

"Oh…"

I gave her the wedding date and told her to be there. She was still bewildered, obviously, but she agreed and said she'd try to inform Andy. Then I had similar conversations with Jake, CeeCee, and Adam. They could all make it. There was some question over maid of honor, but I figured if every single female there was a bridesmaid, it made the whole thing kind of pointless, and it was just going to be a teensy ceremony anyway, so it wasn't that kind of thing. And it had to be soon, or Claire would be too pregnant to fly. Jesse didn't often go on airplanes. Really, he never needed to go on airplanes. He could just materialize there. But he didn't quite trust planes, so he always went on them with me. I'd asked him if it'd been because he didn't know enough about them, but he said it was because he'd learned too much about them. So he flew with me when I went. And very soon, plane day came. Claire and Gina and I took a flight all together. First class. They serve champagne in first class! Did you know that? Having the wedding in New York wouldn't have worked because we didn't want Father Dom to exert himself. And he was pretty much my only chance at marrying Jesse. But he had promised not to die until after the wedding. I had pushed for his not dying ever, but he just laughed and vetoed that idea. I figured he still had about 50 more years in him, anyway. Then we landed in Carmel-by-the-Sea.

A/N: Phew! Not a cliffie I don't think… awefully long'n… it took me forever… I hit writers block about 4 times… date is May 5, 2005. Haha. It is when I'm writing this. Wonder when it'll be when you're reading it… unless of course you're suze, (my suze, not suze simon… err… she IS suze simon in the way that I'm lilly Moscovitz, except of course that I came up with both names on m'own… BUT DON'T I MAKE AN AWESMOE LILLY? Now where was i? ahh yes) but neway… I'm off 2 write m'next'n! REVIEW, PRETTY PRETTY PLZ! Even if u just say "good story" or "ur storys 'eh'" or even "YOUR STORY SUCKS BOTTOM!" just REVIEW! PLEASE!

BTW, I SWEAR it wasn't supposed to take over a year... i'm getting what i deserve, don't worry, i've lost all my readers '(